


2nd Time Around

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: 2nd Time Around (TMNT 2014) [1]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Genre: Family Feels, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 01:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2673521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It is hardly a proper family unit," Splinter murmurs, "but if you truly want it, it's yours."  Alternate ending to 2014 movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	2nd Time Around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sleepingseeker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepingseeker/gifts).



> This is my first contribution to the TMNT fandom base. I've been a huge Turtles fan for years, and really enjoyed the 2014 movie. Except the ending. I wanted to see more bonding between April and the boys. So I decided to tweak it a bit.
> 
> This is the first installment in an in-the-works series for TMNT 2014. I'm looking forward to sharing this work with everyone. Please feel free to leave comments, kudos, or anything in between!

“Stop wiggling.”

“I’m not wiggling.”

“Then stop squirming, or writhing, or whatever other descriptive verb you’d like to use.” April answers, lifting her eyes in time with a small smirk. “Either way you like to phrase it, stop moving.”

A quiet huff follows, not quite impatient but not altogether acquiescing, as the brunette carefully rubs an alcohol pad across a patch of skin. “You know,” she continues after a brief pause, “one would think you could handle being the patient for once, Donnie, instead of just the doctor.”

“Don’t you know doctors make the worst patients?” he offers, head turning slightly as though trying to watch her work. The movement, once again, interrupts her attempt to clean the burn mark below his jaw.  
Her free hand automatically comes up, pressing two fingers to his temple and turning it back.

“I’m figuring it out really quickly.” April nods, sitting back to fix him with a look. “Now, for the last time, stop moving. I am never going to get these cleaned if you keep wriggling all over the place.”

Another huff, though this one sounds more amused than irritated. “Sorry,” he mumbles; it could be a trick of the light, but she almost thinks there’s a soft blush creeping along his cheeks, “I’m not used to being…taken care of.” He ends on a barely audible note. She looks at him, carefully studying his expression.

“Used to being the healer, not the healed?” she offers with a gentle tone.

He nods. “Let’s face it: none of us want Mikey doing this. I’m the only one with any kind of first-aid knowledge.”

She can’t help but giggle at the image. No, indeed. “Well,” she says, “I assure you, I have the proper credentials for this job. So let me do it, okay?”

This time, he gives a nod and settles down. Now, she can finally start working.

Her earlier amusement quickly gives way to concern that creases her smooth brow. These burn marks are worse than she thought—more in number, and far more widespread than her first perusing estimate showed. Not to mention the puncture wounds where the tubes were inserted—and crudely at that, she silently notes—to drain his blood. She wasn’t here when Donatello attended to his brothers, but she can only imagine the injuries were equally damaging.

A hot lick of anger tests her nerves, but she forces it back. Dwelling on it won’t do what needs to be done. More to the point, it won’t keep her mind where it needs to be: on Donatello, and treating each and every wound with the care it deserves.

She continues cleaning the burn marks, making sure each one will be fit for the ointment cream before she actually applies it. As numerous and ugly as they are, these are the injuries easy enough to fix. The puncture marks will be a little more difficult, especially given their depth and location. But she’ll worry about them in a minute.

The crease on her brow deepens as her mind silently calculates the number of burns: three around his neck, one each along his sides, two on the left arm, one on the right arm, and four along his chest. Were this a murder scene— _thank God for small mercies_ —people would call this overkill. There was absolutely no need for him to be electrocuted this many times, and especially so close to his heart and major arteries in his neck. She’s seen rogue animals treated better than this. It is, in a word, disgusting.

She lightly rubs the ointment over one mark on his chest, the one closest to his heart. Beneath her touch, bare fingers coated with the burn cream, she can feel a steady rhythm suddenly break into an erratic beat. Her eyes lift briefly to his face, wondering if she’s hurt him and he just won’t say anything.

The expression she finds—limited view as she has; he’s turned his face from her full gaze—isn’t one of pain. It isn’t completely content and relaxed, but it’s not an uncomfortable grimace either. It’s some undefined place in between; some strange indication of shy discomfort mixed with—if she’s not very much mistaken—innocent pleasure.

The skin beneath her touch suddenly shifts; the pressure increases from her fingers as he moves closer. In the next second, he goes completely rigid, and now his expression changes to unmistakable embarrassment. She can read him all too well. He’s hoping, maybe even praying, she didn’t notice the movement. 

She did. But she says nothing. 

Her body shifts to autopilot, continuing to spread the cream where it needs to be, while her mind removes itself from this moment and drifts to another place in time. A moment from many years earlier, when a little brown-haired girl had sat cross-legged on the cold tile floor of a laboratory. Her hair had been drawn up in a loose ponytail, tendrils escaping and brushing her cheeks; her eyes downcast to her small hands, where a tiny turtle tried to burrow into her palms.

Her eyes had lifted to the tall figure of her father, standing nearby with a syringe in hand. “ _He doesn’t like the injections, Dad_.” She’d stated, voice firm even for a seven-year-old. “ _None of them do. You and Dr. Sacks do them wrong_.”

Her father had shaken his head. “ _April_ ,” he’d said, gently exasperated, “ _you know as well as anyone they don’t know the difference. They’re just animals_.”

“ _That’s not true_.” She had protested, cupping the turtle closer to her chest. A finger had gently stroked along its shell. “ _Donatello knows. He’s the smartest of them all. And he doesn’t like them. He doesn’t like needles_.”

He’d considered her for a minute. “ _Alright, Miss O’Neil, what do you suggest?_ ”

Her answer had been quick and without pause. “ _Let me do them_.”

“ _April—_ ”

“ _I’ve watched you before!_ ” she had continued before the protest could even come out. “ _I know how to do it. And I’ll do it right. You can watch if you don’t believe me_.”

He had hesitated, but after a few short minutes, had squatted down beside her and, after another paused, handed her the syringe. “ _Be careful._ ”

“ _I will_.” She’d answered, taking the needle and adjusting the little turtle to a better position. “ _I know what I’m doing_.”

Ignoring her father’s skepticism, she’d looked down to her lap, where a tiny face had looked up at her. “ _I know you hate these, Donatello,_ ” she’d murmured gently, “ _but let me do this, okay? I’ll make it quick. You won’t feel a thing_.”

April blinks, the memory gone as suddenly as it had come, and shakes her head lightly. Reaching back for another alcohol pad, she gently adjusts his left arm. The puncture marks make her bite her lower lip, swallowing back another bout of furious resentment to those who had hurt him—them— _all of them_ —this way. She releases a slow, careful breath, and lifts the pad in her fingers. His body involuntarily tenses, and she pauses.

He looks wary, and in that expression alone she sees the fear and discomfort he had displayed for needles as a baby in the laboratory. She can only imagine what it must have been like, imprisoned in that glass cage like an animal, bound in place and unable to protest or get away before the tubes were inserted. No one had cared that he didn’t like needles, that he hated injections. They didn’t need to care and they hadn’t.

The pain must have been horrible. And he’d been alone. Even with his brothers so close, they had been so far away from each other. He’d been alone.

Her hand rises from his arm and gently curls around his jaw. He blinks, looking down at her hand, then at her face. She smiles gently at him, her thumb stroking in a slow caress.

“I’ll make it quick.” April murmurs, “You won’t feel a thing.”

Her blue eyes meet his brown eyes. The earlier tension fades, and suddenly they aren’t a human woman and six-foot mutant ninja hidden away beneath the city in an abandoned subway tunnel. They’re a little brown-haired girl and a tiny turtle, seated on the laboratory floor. In resurrecting the past, even for only a moment, the trust which had existed then is brought back to life now. A bond only a seven-year-old child, four little turtles, and a rat had understood. Back then, it had just been them. Outside, she had been a normal human girl. In that laboratory, she had been their friend, and they had been hers. In retrospect, in some strange and inexplicable way, they had been the only true friends she’d had as a child. When they were gone, a part of her had been ripped away with their absence. No confession had betrayed it, but she had carried the pain of an empty cavern within her heart for seventeen years.

But things were different now.

Never breaking the gaze, she cleans the wounds with delicate precision. The hand on his face never pulls away. There are a few moments where she thinks, perhaps, she should take it away; a few moments when she wonders if she’s making him feel uncomfortable. But then he tilts his face, just slightly—barely a fraction of an inch—into her palm. He closes his eyes, almost nuzzling her skin like he had as a little one, and she decides it’s not time to pull away just yet.

She finally does, only when it’s a necessity, because she needs both hands to wrap bandages around the injection sites. To ensure she doesn’t mess up, she breaks the connection and lowers her eyes to his arm. She draws the white cloth around his arm, a slow and careful repetition until she’s satisfied with the job done. The wrappings are secure, but not too restrictive. He’ll still be able to move and function properly.

April shifts quickly to the other side, taking his other arm in hand and collecting another alcohol swab. This time, he doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t shy away from her, and there is no fear or discomfort in his eyes or across his face. She feels his gaze always on her hands or on her face. A few times during the process, she looks up to meet his gaze and smiles. A soft, gentle expression: the kind she wore as a child, coaxing them through the injections or while feeding them a small scrap of pizza. In his eyes, she can see a glimmer of recognition. She saw it earlier, too. Even if he doesn’t completely understand why he understands, or what exactly he’s remembering, some part of him recognizes her words and her smile. It’s good enough for her.

As she’s finishing with the bandages, his voice suddenly breaks the silence with an amused murmur. “What’s your diagnosis, Doctor?”

April smiles and, securing the last bandage, cocks her eyebrow playfully. “I think you’ll live to fight another day, Donnie.”

With that, she stands upright, dusts herself off, and then extends her hands to him. He accepts and joins her. She knows there’s no way she actually pulled him up herself; there was no real pressure on their joined hands and little exertion on her part. She might not be weak, but she’s definitely not that strong. Nevertheless, it pleases her that he can maneuver himself without too much help. It means he’s already on the way to full recovery. And if he’s doing this well, then the others are as well.

A knock at the makeshift door prompts a shared look; Raphael is leaning there against the stone wall, rolling a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. He nods at Donatello first, looking pleased enough at the bandaging job— _high praise indeed_ , she thinks to herself—and then at April, “Sensei wants to see ya.”

**

Splinter is sitting upon a small mat, slowly sipping tea. His large eyes lift at the sound of her approaching footsteps, and his mouth lifts in a small smile. “April,” he murmurs, bowing his head slightly, then gesturing to the mat across from his, “Please.”

She nods before taking the offered seat. He gently nudges a second cup of tea towards her, which she also accepts. It smells good; she hasn’t had tea in a long time. She’d almost forgotten how much she enjoyed it.

“April,” he says after a long pause. She looks up at him again, curious at his tone. It sounds contemplative, but there is something else lingering in the back of his throat that makes her feel he is about to say something she might not like.

Sure enough, it comes barely a second later, “You are not bound to us, child.” He continues, “You do not need to stay.”

She sips her tea, swallowing a couple times before answering, “You make it sound as though I’m doing this out of pity.”

Her tone isn’t accusatory or malicious—she made sure of that before she even spoke the words—but she needs to be frank. There cannot be any misconstrued interpretations for her continued presence in their lives. She won’t allow it.

Splinter shakes his head slowly. “No,” he murmurs, “I know it is not pity. You are better than such things.” She smiles into her tea cup at the words. “Allow me to clarify myself.”

He sets the tea down and focuses more intently on her face. “You saved our lives, April. Seventeen years ago, when you were but a small child. Then you restore my sons to me. Twice now, we are in your debt…and yet we have nothing with which to repay you.” 

He sighs quietly, shaking his large head slowly. “We will never belong to your world. We are too different. We can never be accepted…but you are. You were born into that world, and you belong to it.” One of his paws rests gently over her hand. “You need not stay, dear child. You have done enough.”

April finishes the tea, then sets the cup aside. She sits for another short minute in reflective silence before her hand turns over beneath his and curls fingers around the large palm. For another moment, she experiences and examines the hand within her grasp. It’s not really a hand; the fingers are too long and the nails too like claws, and the skin is covered with thin, coarse fur, save for the naked patch of his palm. It’s large, big enough to almost be human, but still an animal’s paw.

She doesn’t care. Just as she doesn’t care that the hands she’d held in her grasp only a few minutes earlier have only three fingers, and are covered in rough, cold flesh, and their owner will never be mutated enough to look truly human. She doesn’t care. None of it matters. In the past few days alone, they have been through too much together for her to be concerned with such petty matters.

Some part of her thinks he is wrong to say she belongs to the human world. It’s a world she has existed in from birth, but has she ever really belonged to it? She isn’t so sure of that, especially not now. As a child, innocence led to ignorance and happy dismissal of fellow schoolmates who thought she was strange and odd and more than a little weird. She had chalked it all up to a simple lack of understanding. No one, after all, could really understand how happy she had been in the laboratory with her friends. It hadn’t mattered then that her friends were animals. Even then, she had known they were different. She had been different too. It had felt natural, then, to be with them. They hadn’t judged her. They had accepted her.

She had been a child then. Children were allowed to exist in their own worlds, and so she had. But now she was a grown woman. Insofar as the rest of the world knew, she was perfectly normal. A little more determined to find the truth than most reporters, a little more reckless when it came to obtaining the truth, but normal. In high school and college, it had been no different. She had been exceptionally talented at hiding her scientist's mind, because the sad truth was, no one would immediately believe a pretty face could have a lively, inquisitive mind behind it. It had been easier to play a role and move on through life.

And then, an ordinary night in the subway tunnel had turned into a prime opportunity for her to get first dibs on a new headline story. And then everything had gone dark. And then she’d followed mysterious voices to a shadowed rooftop, all in pursuit of the story…or so it had seemed. Now, in retrospect, she wondered if there hadn’t been something else urging her to that rooftop. She knew enough to say her inner child had been reawakened the moment they had spoken each other’s names. The names she had given them.

She doesn’t have to wear the mask anymore. It is a sudden, unbidden, but wholly relieving thought that pours warmth throughout her system. She can be herself again, for the rest of her life. She doesn’t need to worry about what the world thinks, because it all narrows down to four turtles and one rat, all of whom could care less about what the world thinks. 

They don’t belong to that world, and neither does she. Not anymore.

“This isn’t about repaying a debt, Master Splinter.” April murmurs, keeping his paw between both of her hands, “This is my family. My home. I stay because there is no other place I would rather be.” 

_This is where I belong._

Her grip tightens, just enough to emphasize the conviction in her words. “I want to be here with you. All of you.”

A very loud and very disruptive crash erupts from what now serves as the living room. April is the first to look in the direction of said crash; from her peripheral, she sees Splinter do the same. She silently counts three seconds, and then some muffled arguing reaches them from around the corner. Raphael’s voice is loudest and most distinct, expressing increasingly-violent threats towards Michelangelo; the latter’s voice mingles with his brother’s, declaring his innocence. Six more seconds. Leonardo’s voice joins the ruckus, demanding to know who did what and why. Raphael passes judgment with some choice vocabulary. Mikey is quick to protest, adding in several complaining questions about why he’s always the scapegoat for everything around here. Four seconds. Finally, Donatello’s voice completes the quartet. He begins listing each incident, complete with exact dates and times. The dialogue is interrupted periodically by Mikey’s attempt at forming excuses and justifications. Meanwhile, Raphael is still ranting and making threats, while Leonardo tells him to cool off, at increasingly louder vocal levels.

Curiosity finally getting the better of her – and, judging by the way he joins her, Splinter’s as well – April quickly stands and exits the room, turns a corner, and pauses in the living room entrance. What had been serving as a television – recycled, but previously in working order – is now laying face-down on the concrete floor. The screen is heavily cracked, as is half the back. She can see the wires and various knobs inside, exposed by the damage. Personally, she doubts it’s nothing Donatello can’t fix. She’s sure he knows it too. But the thought hasn’t quite entered the argument yet. It probably won’t for the rest of the night. Right now, from what she can hear, all that matters is Raphael missing his wrestling match because Mikey decided to shift the television’s position “just a smidge”.

Splinter’s heavy, exasperated sigh permeates the raging debate. She looks down to her right and finds him dragging a paw down his face, shaking his head simultaneously. After a moment, he looks up and meets her gaze. Something like a smile twitches his mouth.

“It is hardly a proper family unit, my child,” he murmurs, gesturing to the brothers with one hand; Raphael has Mikey in a headlock, Leonardo is telling him to let go, and Donatello has finally crouched down, trying to repair the damage while calling for silence from the others, “but if you truly want it, it’s yours.”

April only smiles. She realizes, belatedly, she’s been smiling since catching sight of the boys—my boys, she thinks affectionately—wrestling with each other, shouting at each other, and all around acting like rambunctious teenagers over a damaged television and a missed wrestling match. She continues smiling as Splinter steps forward, commanding silence with a single clearing of the throat, and advising Raphael that keeping his brother in a headlock for another five seconds will result in a one-way ticket to the Hashi. Then he inquires of Donatello just how long it will take for him to repair the television, because he would hate to miss the late evening news.

And April leans against the arched doorway, hands in her back pockets, and smiles. This is where she belongs. This is her home. They are her family.

And she wouldn’t have them any other way.


End file.
